Detachable Head shell or Not?

There’s no question that it is much more practical to have a tonearm with a detachable head shell. There is also no question in my mind that, everything else being equal, having a fixed head shell has sonic advantages. Whether those sonic advantages are significant enough to justify giving up the practical advantages of detachable head shells is a personal call. Since it is practically impossible to compare both approaches in a situation where everything else is equal, the reason that I feel there are sonic advantages to fixed head shells is the following:

Years ago, when I had more time on my hands and was more obsessive about this hobby I spent quite a bit of time with a soldering iron modifying my components. As crazy as it sounds even to me today, at one point I actually had my entire system (with the exception of cartridge pins and power cords at the wall outlets) hard wired. Not a single connector on any of the cables, low level or high, in sight. Straight shot of tonearm wire from cartridge clips to preamp where it was soldered to the phono section’s circuit board. Interconnects to amplifier and speaker cables at both ends were, likewise, hardwired. My point in bringing this up is that every time that I eliminated a connector or some kind from the signal path there was an audible improvement in sound So, for me, it would defy logic to think that the elimination of the additional contact points introduced by a head shell would not result in a sonic improvement; especially considering a cartridge’s very low level,signal. Again, whether the improvement in sound is worth the hassle and inconvenience is a personal call; but the improvement was real.

However, this is really all academic since a superior arm design with a detachable head shell will be superior to a lesser design with a non-detachable head shell.  I am not aware of any arm that comes both ways, detachable and non-detachable.

Too many typos.  Too many solder flux fumes?  😱

I have a custom built tonearm, that is a complete reworking of a known brands model.

This arm has a SME type detachable headshell and during my discussions over a few years with the arms engineer who has carried out the modifications, the design weakness has always been the Detachable Headshell, but the convenience and ease of use has been the reason to maintain it.

Very recently the arm engineer has produced a upgrade detachable Headshell for the arm, that has a much improved coupling to the Wand.

Shortly before the Festive Season, I was given a demonstration of the Original vs New Design, and the difference in improvement was not subtle, it was the cherry on the cake, for the modifications.

Just a slight rethink of the mechanics of the interface and coupling method has brought about very noticeable improvements, with similar levels of convenience maintained for the exchanges if needed.  

A nice orderly sane discussion :-) i have fixed but …..my wandering eye is on a TT with two arms…single shot and a gattling gun…

@frogman, ))))) I even totally rewired a Conrad Johnson preamp putting it in a new chassis with all silver wire. There was only a volume control. I only played records at the time. Sure it sounded better, but I have no way of separating psychology from reality. It was a fun exercise. I no longer do those things because equipment is so expensive and you don't want to remove value. I still insist on a fixed headshell and continuous tone arm wiring clips to RCAs or XLRs. By fixed I mean no SME plug in. I consider Schroder's plate and Kuzma's head shell fixed designs as both are screwed solidly to the tonearm. 

The reality here is that none of really knows what the sonic advantages or disadvantages are as doing that comparison test is difficult at best. So, all we have is theory and some of us are happy ignoring theory for convenience. Which to me means they are not true audiophiles. They might as well get an old Dual changer:)))